Donald Trump denigrated by US media, including Fox News

One is never better betrayed than by his own, says the popular saying. In the aftermath of the Helsinki summit, even Fox News strongly criticized Donald Trump's attitude towards Vladimir Putin, leaving the US president more isolated than ever on the national political scene.

On the air yet very right-wing TV channel, usually prompt to support the White House, one of the presenters claimed that Donald Trump's press conference with his Russian counterpart, "gave a very bad picture of him. […] He seemed out of step with reality and the facts. "

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On its website, Fox News also publishes a long column – entitled "This is not a way to win against Russia" – which, again, denounces the attitude of the president. The latter said he believed Vladimir Putin's denials, despite the evidence provided by his intelligence services, about Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

Fox News protests:

"Rather than to oppose Putin, Trump offered to cooperate with Russia on the problems she herself created. It's like asking a criminal to investigate his own crimes .

"Carrots for Vladimir Putin"

This disavowal is all the more scathing because it comes from the president's own camp, which manages to win a broad consensus in the American media landscape, usually opposed ideologically Thus, many pro-Republican sites denounce, Tuesday, July 17, "the failure" of the summit, the Washington Examiner daring a play on words evoking the ] "Flop" of " Hell-sinki" (literally, "the summit of hell").

In unison, The Federalist evokes a "great missed opportunity for American interests" . "Trump usually knows how to treat his interlocutors with both the stick and the carrot. Why were there only carrots for Vladimir Putin? wonders about the news site, which is in favor of a rapprochement with Russia.

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The Very Conservative National Review tackles just as violently – if not more – the attitude of the tenant of the White House:

"This summit does not mean, as the Democrats have suggested, that Trump shares his bed with the Russians. Much more likely, this means that Trump's ego is a giant open-ended injury, which fills with discontinuous rage as soon as one dares to suggest that his electoral victory in 2016 could have come from manipulation.

Unsurprisingly, the entire press fired red balls on the presidential strategy. CNN calls this meeting of "the most astonishing moment of a presidency that is not lacking" . The TV channel deplores "a gulf as big as the Grand Canyon", between the allegations of the president in Helsinki and the reality of a Russian presidency which "has always aimed to succeed in destabilizing The Western world ".

"The role of the dominant dog"

How to justify this speech? this complete disavowal of US intelligence services? this adoption of the Russian Newspeak in anti-Moscow conspiracy? The press is looking for answers. "Such behavior is so perverse, so contrary to American values ​​and interests that only one conclusion is necessary: ​​either Donald Trump works for Russian intelligence, or he likes to play this character on television" attempts to advance the New York Times.

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The Online Media Vice News just as CNN opts for the theory of "kompromat": "It is likely that the Russians have something compromising about it, something so much embarrassing that he prefers to ignore the obvious immediate danger posed by Russia rather than seeing it become public.

The Los Angeles Times prefers to read, at least, a history of political coherence, since to speak of an interference would delegitimize his election and therefore his presidency. Or, to formulate a more testosterone and cryptic hypothesis: "Trump admires Putin because men like him admire men like Putin" sums up the Californian daily.

Is this the only key to reading of the Helsinki Summit? A history of domestication, also emphasized by the New Yorker in an article devoted in particular to the gestures of the two actors of the summit:

"Putin clearly played the role of the dominant dog from the beginning. […] He shows his boredom. He slumps into his seat, legs apart. Often, he does not even look at Trump. Trump, who invariably wears his red tie, sits on the edge of his chair. His fingers clash, perhaps instinctively, perhaps nervously.

And the Boston Globe spinning this canine metaphor, evoking that moment when "Putin stroked his poodle" . The daily concludes that it is "now impossible not to realize that Trump will not fight Russia if it is not forced by Congress. It is up to him now to officially disavow Donald Trump. "

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